PDP shifts mini-convention

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has rescheduled its special national convention for August 31.

It will be preceded on August 24 by Southwest congress in Ibadan, the Chairman of the PDP Convention Committee, Professor Jerry Gana, announced yesterday in Abuja.

He told reporters that the new dates were necessitated by the ongoing Ramadan fast.

Guidelines for the Southwest congress and the national convention are to be released on Monday.

The committee chairman added that nomination forms earlier purchased by aspirants to the various positions remain valid.

The forms are expected to be returned to the committee 14 days before the convention.

Meanwhile, the convention committee appears to be at loggerheads with the remaining members of the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) headed by the PDP national chairman, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur.

Gana and the Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, who is the secretary of the convention committee, were reportedly denied entry into the Abuja residence of the party’s national chairman on Thursday.

The two party stalwarts were said to have gone to Tukur’s residence for consultations on issues relating to the party convention.

They were reportedly kept outside the gate after security men at the gate told them that Tukur was not at home and that they could not enter the chairman’s expansive premises.

Gana neither confirmed nor denied the report, saying that as party leaders, they were not expected to be discussing party issues on the pages of newspapers.

“It’s true that the Deputy President of the Senate and I went to the chairman’s house to see him. But we will not take issues on that because we respect our party chairman. We are not going to discuss our party issues on the pages of newspapers,” Gana stated.